Another Source for Natchez Trace Information

A Google alert popped up for FamilyRoadTrippers last week -- it seems that the Fun Times Guide to the Natchez Trace Parkway likes our video of driving the Natchez Trace Trail with George Jones playing on the radio (is there any other way to do it?)


Lynnette, the editor, lives in TN right near the trace and gives regular updates on it. If you're planninga family road trip down (or up) the Trace, be sure to surf The Fun Spot for current tips and attractions.

For example, if Fall colors are something that you'd like to coordinate with, Lynnette covered it.

Happy Trails!!

PS If you like the video, please give it a five star rating...

Let the Weather Choose Travel Routes on Roadtrips

Sometimes its better to drive west in order to go east; you'll find beautiful weather, new sights, and new adventures.

Making our way back from New Orleans to Nashville, the sky turned gray and then black. Then the black clouds started swirling. Black swirling skies are a bad sign in the southeast, usually meaning tornadoes. Rather than drive northeast on the Natchez Trace, and along the storm path, we drove west over the Mississippi River into Louisiana, headed north into Arkansas, jumped back over the river into Mississippi, and then straight north to Memphis.

This turned out to be fast, scenic, a new adventure, and an eye-opening drive (but that's a different blog topic altogether). We’d never driven through Mississippi before, just a short drive along the gulf coast after Katrina. The road we took, mostly state Highway 1 North along the river was a two lane road in great shape. There was very little traffic, mostly semis, but it wasn’t congested at all.

The scenery was beautiful, driving up through the rich farmlands of the Mississippi River floodplain. The crops were mostly corn, but a few of the fields had golden wheat growing which was beautiful in the sunlight. The rain from the night before left standing water in many of the fields, which made lessons for Tom about floodplains and farming more relevant.

We didn't want to abandon the Trace
While we really enjoyed the Natchez Trace Parkway, and were actually sad to get off of it in favor or “regular” roads, this rural route provided a pathway to Memphis which helped to wrap up a few loose ends of our educational journey with the kids. Because our destination was New Orleans, the Mississippi River played a big part in how we framed some lessons for Tom. But the Natchez Trace doesn’t follow the river, it begins there. And it exists because of the river. Driving along the river allowed us to a see the farmlands we’d talked about and the shape of the river, and its floodplain. It also allowed us to follow Elvis from his home in Tupelo (which we visited on the Trace) to his home in Memphis and Sun Recoding studio, where Johnny Cash and Elvis recorded.

Natchez Trace Parkway: Drive This Road! part 3

Day 2: Clear skies and smooth sailing. Tupelo got hit the night before with a tornado, but it's all blown over now and the sun is out for a beautiful day of driving in Mississippi. We took the Trace to Jackson and cut south to New Orleans.

A George Jones video of the Natchez Trace in Mississippi:

Eat Lunch Here -- French Camp on the aNatchez Trace

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The Bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich is America's sandwich.
Probably the best version of the BLT is along the Natchez Trace Parkway -- it comes as a triple-decker with home made garlic Tabasco mayo.

French Camp on the Natchez Trace Parkway, mile 180.7, Mississippi.

Natchez Trace Parkway: Drive This Road, part 2

I'm kind of a pushover. I love almost any good road I'm driving on. The Anaconda-Pintler Scenic Route in western Montana is a fantastic road, the Road through Smoky Mountain National Park is a great road, but the Natchez Trace Parkway is really a great road. I don't think I say that because I'm smitten. I think it's the truth. Tinsley will back me up on it. She keeps finding reasons to love it too.

Maybe it's just that the kids were behaving exceptionally well (see Tips forRoadtripping with Kids tip #1 Start 'em Early and Often). They're either totally beaten down and resigned to the fact thet they're going to spend 50% of their lives in the back seat, or they like it. These days, it seems like they like it.

The first 50 - 100 miles are a little windy, but after that, it's nothing but gentle curves, gradual inclines, nice road surface, ZERO LITTER... This would make a fantastic bike ride.

We worked up some stuff for Tom to study before we left because we're pulling him from school to do this. One of the things is a two page map spread of the road and the Mississippi river. I added a bunch of text about the river -- how it works, what grows in and around it, why shrimp in New Orleans are jumbo and consequently, what an oxymoron is (I'll post that stuff soon). Tinsley laid out the page and made my words fit. At the Mississippi Arts Center, she picked up a copy of Mark Twain's Life on the Mississippi. Within the first three pages, he verified all of the things that I had written and she acted so amazed. I guess she thinks I have an active imagination.

Anyway, here's a good tip: If you're driving the Trace (or exploring anywhere in Mississippi River country, buy and read Twain's book before you go (during the trip is OK, but not quite as good). Twain is such a wonderful describer of things and people that it really helps to make the trip fun and interesting for parents and kids alike.

Here's another tip: keep a running tab of animals that you see. We saw tons of turkeys (literally). Which maybe isn't such a surprise. But we also saw a lot of other animals too. Guess which is the strangest animal we saw.

Here's a hint: we saw it in Alabama.
OK, here's another hint: It's not native to Alabama.
Give up?

C'mon, don't give up, it's native to some other continent and it begins with a "C"
Guess what it is.


Nope, guess again.

OK, I'll tell you. It was a camel.

We saw a camel in Alabama.

So when we saw the Zebra, it was a little less surprising. The Zebra may have been more surprising, had we seen it first, but after seeing a camel in Alabama, how could you b e surprised by a striped horse?

We spent the night in Tupelo, Mississippi after visiting Elvis's birthplace and driving by the Tupelo National Battlefield (which is right next to the side of the highway and can be photographed from the car at a stop sign. Probably not worth too much effort, but Tupelo is a great little city, the Hilton Garden Inn is a wonderful place to stay, and the Starbuck's in Tupelo was great (this was where I bought the great country cd).

Natchez Trace Parkway: Drive This Road, part 1

Smooth, scenic, sparsely populated with traffic, tons of history, interesting educational exhibits, bathrooms everywhere you could even hope for, picnic areas, campgrounds, and one heck of a great place to stop for lunch. Oh yeah, and it rains money when you drive the Trace. Well, not money, but sometimes it rains.

This road is one of America’s best backroads, Five stars, four thumbs up (out of four thumbs), and any other accolades that we can give to a road.


We began in Nashville, TN. Music City. Home of the Grand Ol’ Opry. We put AM650 WSM on the radio and headed into the storm that had caused a tornado in Tupelo the night before. We learned that Eddy Arnold had died the previous night, so WSM was playing almost exclusively Eddy Arnold. The rain wasn’t continuously torrential, it was intermittent. We were able to stop along the road to learn about American (and pre-American) history. We spent the night in Tupelo after seeing Elvis’s birthplace.

At a Starbucks in Tupelo, I bought a CD -- Classic American Country. I’ve always been suspicious of cds sold in Starbucks, but the mix is really pretty good. I should have bought the cd in Nashville because it covered exactly the right music to put the scenery through the window into context. As it turned out, that was the day Eddy Arnold died, and Eddy had the first song on the cd -- Cattle Call. Other greats ate George Jones, Ernest Tubb, Johnny Cash, Hank Williams, Conway Twitty. Our only complaints were that Roger Miller’s song wasn’t the best choice of Roger Miller songs, and there was no Dolly Parton. C’mon, no Dolly?

An Amazing Adventure

We're on the Natchez Trace Parkway today and tomorrow, heading to New Orleans. We stopped at the state line signs between Tennessee and Alabama and met a man taking pictures, just like I was. I guess people that take pictures of state line signs are just naturally drawn to conversation.

Turns out he's supporting a bike rider who's going from Baton Rouge, LA to St Paul, MN. How cool is that?
(pretty cool)

I told him if he had a web site, I'd link to him here.
Here's a journal of his ride:
http://mhumbee-tr1.livejournal.com/

and here's a site about what he's doing and why:

http://schoolweb.seasparish.org/great_rivers_trinity_challenge.html

Happy pedaling, Mick!

Family Roadtrip, Comin' Up!

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I have to head to New Orleans for the National Green Building Conference sponsored by the National Association of Home Builders. As it happens, the show is over the Mother's Day weekend (Smart conference planning tip: don't schedule your conference for Mother's Day weekend). Oddly enough, the NAHB's International Builder's Show was in Orlando this year over Valentines Day (is the NAHB anti-sweetheart and anti-Mom?).

As luck would have it, Tinsley is fine with me going to the conference as long as I take her out to a nice Mother's Day Brunch.

In New Orleans.

Do I feel a road trip coming, or what?

Ever since we lived in Nashville, we've wanted to drive the Natchez Trace Parkway. It's a 444 mile National Scenic Route running from Natchez, Mississippi to Nashville, TN. The Parkway follows the old Natchez Trace Trail which was a walking and horse path back in the old days.

I got to drive a small portion of it the last time I visited New Orleans, and the itch intensified. In a few weeks, we'll fly into Nashville and rent a car. We'll drive the Natchez Trace to its end and wind our way into New Orleans.

Maybe we'll take the fast way back, maybe not.

A Little Chunk of the Natchez Trace Trail

This 445 mile scenic drive through the heart of the south is quick and beautiful with lot's of side loops to explore. Many places to jump on and jump off means easy access too.

I went to New Orleans last week for the Traditional Building Show and Convention. While I was there, I took a few extra days to explore the wreckage of hurricanes Katrina and Rita. In heading to Mississippi’s Gulf coast, I took a little detour: north out of New Orleans to Natchez, Miss, so that I could drive a little piece of the Natchez Trace Trail. This historic scenic road was a way home for farmers who had floated their wooden boat down the Mississippi from Ohio, Kentucky, and other farming states to sell their crops. They’d typically sell the boat too, buy a horse and ride it home. The trail goes from Natchez, Mississippi to Nashville, Tennessee.

I’ve wanted to drive this road ever since Tinsley and I lived in Nashville. Our friend, Michael Evans, told us what a wonderful drive it is, but we never were able to take the trip. One of these days when we’re visiting her folks in Nashville, we’ll take a side trip down the Natchez Trace Trail for a family vacation to Planet New Orleans. For now, I’ll write about the chunk I covered last week.

The southern portion of this road is fantastic -- smoothly paved; curvy enough to be a fun drive, but not so curvy that the passengers will puke; and laid out to allow a reasonable pace -- 50 or 55 mph. This is better than the Blue Ridge Parkway, where you’re limited to around 40 mph (faster than 40 and the passengers will, you know, puke). And it wasn’t crowded at all (unlike the Blue Ridge). The 25 measly miles that I covered were a wonderful introduction. In fact, I seriously considered changing my plans from visiting the Mississippi coast and then flying out of New Orleans, to skipping the gulf coast, driving straight up to Nashville and flying home from there.

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My trip-let started in Natchez, and I drove up to the Windsor Ruins, stopping at the Mount Locust Inn and Plantation on the way. The Inn and plantation consists of is dog trot style cabin, some slave’s quarters, a four room, two story annex out back known as Sleepy Hollow (not related to the headless Horseman), and a couple of cemeteries. Because I was racing the light to the ruins (in order to get photos, see the top photo), I wasn’t able to really explore the Inn but I did snap a few photos of the main house (the light was great). The Mount Locust Inn was one of two or three that provided a place for travelers to sleep under a roof, get a hot meal, and stock up on a few supplies for the long trip. There were about 20 "stands" along the way that offered no sleeping quarters, just the bare minimum of supplies and food.

More Natchez Trace installments as we cover them…

Have you ever been on the Trace?